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ACLU: Pentagon to release images of prisoner abuse

The photos will be made available by May 28, the ACLU said,
citing a letter dated Thursday from the Justice Department to a
federal judge in New York. The photos' release is in response to a
Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU in 2004 and
will include images from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan at
locations other than Abu Ghraib, the ACLU said.

"These photographs provide visual proof that prisoner abuse by
U.S. personnel was not aberrational but widespread, reaching far
beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib," Amrit Singh, staff attorney with
the ACLU, said in a statement. "Their disclosure is critical for
helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse
as well as for holding senior officials accountable for authorizing
or permitting such abuse."

The Justice Department letter, signed by Acting U.S Attorney Lev
L. Dassin, follows a September 2008 ruling by the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 2nd Circuit requiring disclosure of the photos and
the court's subsequent refusal in March 2009 to rehear the case,
the ACLU said.

Since the ACLU's FOIA request in 2003, the Bush administration
had refused to disclose these images, the ACLU said. The
administration claimed that disclosure of such evidence would
generate outrage and would violate U.S. obligations toward
detainees under the Geneva Conventions, the ACLU said.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court in September 2008
rejected the Bush administration's position, saying there was
significant public interest in disclosure of the photographs, the
ACLU said. The Bush administration's appeal to the full appeals
court was denied on March 11 of this year.

The letter from Justice said the Pentagon was preparing to
release 21 photos at issue in the appeal, plus 23 others
"previously identified as responsive." The letter added that the
Pentagon also was "processing for release a substantial number of
other images contained in Army CID reports that have been closed
during the pendency of this case."

The ACLU and the Defense Department reached an agreement for
"all the responsive images" to be released by May 28, the letter
said.

"The disclosure of these photographs serves as a further
reminder that abuse of prisoners in U.S.-administered detention
centers was systemic," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU
National Security Project. "Some of the abuse occurred because
senior civilian and military officials created a culture of
impunity in which abuse was tolerated, and some of the abuse was
expressly authorized. It's imperative that senior officials who
condoned or authorized abuse now be held accountable for their
actions."
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)